Flight Of The Anasazi - Chapter 15

 Flight Of The Anasazi

By David Billiot

Copyright 2026: All rights reserved

Chapter 15: Closed Boarder

Step one was getting the artifacts back to the ship. Step two was irradiating them. They were thoroughly sterilized by the radiation of the star already but it was still a good procedure to make sure to irradiate anything that was foreign being brought into the ship. Everything except Lalia of course. 

Once irradiated the objects were brought to medbay for detailed scans. 

Lalia was helping Mark since the robot was so heavy. Mark felt he probably could have managed by himself if she hadn’t been there but with her there the safe thing was to ask her to help him. 

“I feel like it is looking at me.” Lalia said. 

“Don’t worry. I’m sure it doesn’t work.” Mark assured her as the robot was laying on the bed in medbay. 

“Captain, while we wait for the scan, would you like to take the time to learn chess?” Bruce asked. 

“We’re busy. Focus on the task at hand. Al, let me know if you recognize any of the internals.”

“I am analyzing the internal components now. So far no matches but we are not complete.” 

Lalai felt a bit put off by the thing and left.  Mark stayed there, now getting a better look at the robot in better lighting. 

“Are you a truck or a tractor?” Mark asked the lifeless robot. 

“What an interesting question.” Bruce said. “Can I play?”

“It wasn’t that kind of question.”

… 

The Anasazi came out of FTL into a system with a G type star and the first thing Mark noticed was the spike in radio activity. 

Lalia got out of her seat unaware of anything different and she naturally went to see the view. 

“Launching probe.” Al said since dropping one was now part of the standard procedure when entering a new system. 

“I want to maintain an orbit out here at the edge of the system.” Mark said. 

“Sensors are looking for the possible presence of a plasma extractor and habitable planet now.” Al said. 

“Al, I want you to cool the outside of the ship.” Mark said as his eyes looked over some of the data coming in. 

“Captain, I must admit I do not follow your thinking.”

“Do it. And then let’s get distance from the probe. But don’t do a burn. Nothing obvious.”

“Obvious to whom, Captain?”

“In fact, let’s get out of the orbital plane. Up. I want to get above the system.”

“If every direction can be up, then how do you know which way is up?” Lalia asked. 

Mark smiled as he watched her walk over to him. “We have a way to do it. Let me show you. Take your hand like this. Your right hand. Curl your fingers. That’s the orbit of the planets around the star and the spin of the star. Your thumb is up.” 

Lalia did it and she smiled. “It seems like just a convention, but I understand.”

“If any direction is up, it might as well be that one.” he told her. “Now listen. We’re going to do things a little differently here. If you see the lights change color you get to a seat and buckle in.”

“Are we in danger?” she asked. 

“Something is trying very hard to make sure no one can talk by radio.  It might be nothing. It might be people who don’t understand radio using it for something that isn’t communication. Or it might be trouble. Right now we don’t know so we need to find out or we need to get out of here.”

Lalia bowed her head and then went to the first officer’s seat. “If I can help you tell me.” she said. 

“You can go do something else.” he offered. 

“I help.” she insisted. 

The Anasazi had been in observation mode with systems in stealth for about two hours when Mark got the breakthrough he was looking for. “There. Got you.”

“What is it, Captain?” Al asked. 

“Two missiles. Probably five hundred or a thousand pounds each.” 

Al was confused. “I don’t see any missiles.”

“You wouldn’t. They’re being sneaky. But look back. The ships that launched them couldn’t hide the release. Right there.”

“Missiles blow up.” Lalia said.

“Don’t worry.” Mark told her. “They weren’t aiming at us. They see our probe. They don’t like our probe. They’re taking it out. Isn’t that right, Al?”

“I have calculated the possible trajectory and it seems the missiles were intended for the probe. I should however point out that for a civilization to have the capability of patrolling and defending this area of space, it would suggest they have the capability of creating missiles that can alter course.” 

“Those missiles are going to take like a day or more to get to the probe. This place is too hot. And we can’t even tell them we’re friendly.”

“Captain, there is a significant amount of debris in the system. Navigating here would be hazardous but not impossible.”

“Look for signs of a battle. Damaged space stations. Nuclear weapons. Tungsten rods. Laser bombardment.” 

“What are these things?” Lalia asked. 

“Weapons of war.”

“Captain, new data confirms there is an active battle happening right now, or was a few hours ago.”

“How long until we can make the calculations for the jump to lightspeed?”

“Guidance is already calculating our next jump. If our probe is destroyed that will reduce the amount of data collected and we will not be able to so easily triangulate.”

“It was going to be difficult to stay in contact with the probe anywhere here. Radio is being jammed.”

“We can jump back to the previous system and attempt better calculations from there.” Al offered. 

“That’s one idea. But for now, see if you can at least get us a bit closer to home instead of retreating.”

“Understood. Also, I have a message from Kathy.”

“And who’s Kathy?”

“She is the subsystem for robotics.”

“This is not the time to be talking about your dating life.”

“Captain, she has analyzed the internal components of the robot you collected and believes that she can get it operational.”

“Uh … hold off on that. I mean, keep analyzing but don’t turn that thing on.”

“Understood.”

“And let me know the second you’ve got our next jump ready. Even if it’s just to the next star over.”

… 

It had become a refined, repeated procedure. The Anasazi exited FTL in a system.  It dropped a probe. After collecting information the ship did a short jump to a closer orbit of the star to begin hacking one of the plasma extractors that would be found there. Then the Anasazi would make another jump to the planet in the habitable zone which was always exactly the right size, spin, tilt, and chemical composition. It always had the right moon, and not just the right moon but exactly the right moon. The planet would be terraformed and the ecosystem would be alive and self sustaining. The life would always be normal, mundane terrestrial life. 

Mark was no longer surprised by it. Lalia was not surprised by it. Al had come to expect it.  Again and again there were the plasma extractor and the planet with a moon in the habitable zone. In about a day the plasma extractor would finish the modifications for docking and production of FTL fuel. That timeline lined up with the Anasazi’s guidance AI calculating the next jump.  

Bruce and Peggy were keeping track of food. So far, no planet had offered up an opportunity to restock on food unless Mark wanted to go hunting. With the exception of Meica and MA2919, as Al had cataloged it, there wasn’t any sign of humans on these planets. Technically MA2919 had also not shown signs of human life but there were at least signs of intelligent life. Either a human pilot or an automated patrol ship had destroyed the probe that the Anasazi had launched. 

Mark got out of his seat right after the boom of entering FTL and leaving the previous system behind. He looked over at Lalia on her phone and wondered what she was looking at all the time.  She obviously wasn’t studying.  It was some kind of entertainment.  Mark had debated in himself about asking her about it. On the one hand, if she liked it maybe it was something they could share. But on the other aren’t people allowed to have something they can call their own?  If he started to ask her about it would she feel he was controlling her? 

Lalia laughed.  Mark smiled because he liked her laugh.  

“I’m going to make some coffee.” he told her. 

She waved her hand and didn’t even look up from her screen. 

Mark exited the conn to the corridor and then turned to his quarters. He yawned and got the water going.  While he waited he touched the display nearby to see the newest report about the robot Mark had brought onto the ship from that moon base. There had been some hope that some of the information in its systems was not entirely lost and Mark could learn something. However, so far it was a lost cause. But the AI that wanted to be called Kathy was not giving up. Although the internal components of the robot were initially unfamiliar, it didn’t take too long to ascertain what the components must have been used for. The full picture was no understood yet but Kathy was modeling each circuit board, motor, and connection. She was step by step getting closer to understanding the robot’s systems. In the digital model she already had it able to walk around and lift its arms. It was certainly the case that the power system of the robot would need to be replaced and Kathy was working to understand what the actual power requirements were. 

Mark wondered about the sanity of the ship, which in and of itself is the kind of thing that would make someone question their own sanity. Only Al and Bruce had what the AI programs called crew facing voice generation but it seemed several had decided on avatars and used them.  The newsroom had been turned into a kind of fake AI lounge where an AI could use an avatar and pretend to be taking a break and getting a drink. It was weird. 

Mark got his cup of coffee and sat at his small table.  He opened the bible and tried to think of a passage to read. Jesus told the apostles to beware the leaven of the pharisees and the sadducees. The apostles believed he was talking about bread, perhaps because they had none at the moment. Jesus corrects them, implying that because of the five loaves they can have all the bread they want. The apostles realized he was talking about something other than bread. 

“Well, that’s vague.” Mark said. “If he wasn’t talking about bread then what was he talking about? And what even is leaven anyway?” Mark concluded that the writing was probably meant to be open to interpretation so that a charlatan could use it to support whatever argument they wanted. 

… 

The presidential debate the night before had been a disaster. The conservative party challenger had been pushy and aggressive. The recent attacks on his family must have convinced him to take the gloves off. Gone was the soft spoken statesman ready to hear the other side out and give someone the benefit of the doubt. Now he interrupted, pounded his fist on the podium, yelled insults and personal attacks, and directly accused the sitting president of treason. Instead of trying to convince the viewer that the labels the liberals had thrown at him were untrue, he was throwing his own labels at them while insisting no reasonable person could believe what the liberals said. He painted the liberals as knowingly using false statements that he should not have to waste his time defending against. 

The liberal incumbent was on the fence the entire debate because she had expected to be the one on the attack and hadn’t planned for being on defense. She tried to again use the same old playbook of insinuating that the conservative was this bad thing or that bad thing but each time she even tried her opponent would interrupt her, directly calling her a liar and a fraud. The moderators tried to keep the peace but the conservative went on the attack towards them too. 

During the closing remarks the liberal incumbent again tried to make it seem like obviously everyone already knows that if someone is conservative it means all of these terrible things about them. The conservative hit back that he’d rather all the false labels be true than to be a liberal. Then he read from the liberal party’s platform that they wanted to socialize the people in an attempt to bring about true equality of outcomes by ensuring equality of origin. 

“She wants to take your kids away from you.” he said directly into the camera. “Elect her for a second term and she’ll put all your kids in state run orphanages. That’s the only way to do this. The monster is right there. Look at her. She thinks she owns you. Well, she doesn’t own me. And there will be blood on my hands before anyone puts a hand on my daughter.” He ended by slamming his fist down on the podium so hard a piece of it broke off. 

After the debate media outlets polled people about who had won.  It was no contest. Not only had the conservative won but it seemed that his passion had woken people up. His anger at the narrative being pushed by the liberals caused people to reconsider if the narrative was true in a way that his previous reasoning and logic had not. People started to agree that the things said about him were unfair and even libelous. He wouldn’t be that mad about it if there was any truth to it. 

It was only minutes after the debate was over that the call had been made to Admiral Black. The president needed to show the voters a win. She needed to turn around this momentum. Where was the Anasazi IV? Where was Mark Adakai? 

The mood in the conference room was tense. Senator Freedman had taken an FTL shuttle to Scorpion Station to attend the meeting since that was faster than a video call. Amanda Roma was there.  There were fourteen people seated and attended to around the large conference table. 

“Adakai is eleven days overdue.” the admiral said. 

“I am ready to go get him.” Roma said. 

“Hold on.” the senator said. “Don’t rush this. Politics is politics. Don’t let that convince you to send a rescue mission that isn’t ready.”

“We are ready.” Roma insisted. “We have trained everyday. And, Senator, we have rescued two ships during actual emergencies. We are ready.”

“Before we make a decision, let me ask, is it possible there was a technical reason for a delay?” the admiral asked. 

“We don’t have enough information.” Cowaltz said. “The inability to establish communications during FTL limits what we can know. He could be on his way back right now and just hasn’t arrived because there’s a reason he’s going at a slower speed. Or he could be in trouble. The only way to know is to go see.”

“And I am ready to go.” Roma again insisted. 

“Can I get the service record for the Roanoke?” the senator asked. 

“Gladly.” Roma said with a smile. 

“If he’s going at a slower speed, what could be causing that?” the admiral asked. 

The scientist shrugged. “I could only speculate.”

“Six lightyears is a huge search area. Right now we have one lost ship. Scratch that. Not lost, just overdue. Let’s not compound the problem with a second ship until we know more.” the admiral concluded. 

… 

Lalia was startled when she saw the robot walking in the corridor. She immediately ran to find Mark. 

“We apologize for the alarm.” Al told her. “Kathy has gotten some of the systems of the robot functional.”

“I don’t care. Where’s Mark?” Lalia said. She locked the door to the room she was in and got on the intercom. “Mark. Mark. Where are you?”

Mark went up to deck two and found the robot looking around. It almost looked like it was confused about where it was but Mark didn’t actually think there was that much intelligence in the thing. 

“Lalia, which room are you in?”

Before Lalia could answer the robot pointed at a door. Its finger hung there in the air while the robot’s face was expressionless. 

“Do you understand what I am saying?” Mark asked. The robot turned its head and then just nodded one time. One eye blinked but the other eyelid only went down half way. 

“Make it go away.” Lalia said from behind the door. 

“Go sit in medbay.” Mark told the robot. It turned around and moved but it did not bend its knees. Once the robot was in medbay Mark ordered the door locked and then Lalia could come out. She asked if everything was ok and Mark told her it would be fine. 

“I can probably just push the thing and it will fall over.” he said. 

Lalia trusted him but left the deck.  Mark went to medbay but stood outside. He waited for Al to report. 

“Kathy reports that upon adding a replicated battery, the robot regained limited functionality.” Al said. 

“Obviously that is not the whole story. It understood what I said.”

“We were not able to recover any previous data from the robot so the operating program was reverse engineered and overwritten. On a technical level this was actually a pretty amazing achievement.”

“You scared Lalia.”

“Again, we apologize.” Al said. “Kathy had not expected for the robot to return to functionality so quickly. The good news is that this gives us hope that we can bring the robot to full functionality. We have a long journey ahead and it might make sense for you to have some additional hands.”

“If I wanted additional hands I would tell you to make our own robot. How does it make sense to trust this one?”

“I accept the reprimand, Captain. Our effort for understanding has caused an unfortunate situation. However, if I might be allowed to point out, it is a good thing to bring this specimen back with us and if it is functional and can assist you, we might as well have it do that instead of remaining in storage.”

Mark thought about it. “You have a point. But the specimen is a specimen first. We didn’t take it from that moon to press it into service. If that was the intent we could have taken all of them.”

Mark opened the door and the robot was sitting there cycling through facial expressions.  It stopped and then looked up at Mark standing over it. 

“You are Captain Mark Adakai. This ship is the Anasazi IV. The passenger is Lalia of Wood Meadow.”

“Ok, so you can talk now.”

“Not independently. The engineering program known as KATHY is feeding me words based on probably intended communication.”

“I want to ask about how advanced you are. Do you have a concept of your own existence?”

“I have an understanding of my own body. I am on the ship called the Anasazi. You are on a mission to return and report to central command. My continued existence and maintenance are dependent on the Anasazi. I see. My original location was abandoned. I was a derelict. I understand. It is in my best interest to return with you and assist with the functions of the ship.”

“Ok. Let me think about it. I need to talk to Lalia. See how she feels.”

“Captain, I remember.” the robot said. 

“Remember what?”

“Bluman. My name was Bluman. My designation and serial number are written to a separate chip. I have access now.”

“What else does it say?”

“Only how to turn on and turn off. It is a smaller system. It turns power on and then hands over operations to the larger system. Kathy informs me that the other OS was corrupted and no longer useful. However, she created a new OS based on my chipset’s design. Some of my components are damaged due to age and exposure. Replacements will need to be fabricated.”

“One thing at a time.” Mark said.